Bihar: Spurious liquor claims 10 lives in Nalanda district

BIHARSHARIF: At least 10 people died allegedly after consuming spurious liquor in Nalanda district on Saturday. Eight of them belonged to Chhoti Pahari under Sohsarai police station area while two were natives of Prabhu Bigha village under Manpur police station area in the district. Liquor is banned in Bihar.
The deceased were identified as Munna Mistry (55), Bhago Mistry (55), Dharmendra Mahto alias Nageshwar (50), Kali Charan (52), Arjun Pandit (50), Sunil Tanti (24), Rajesh Kumar (42) and Ashok Sharma from Chhoti Pahadi and Ram Rup Chauhan (45) and Shivji Chauhan from Prabhu Bigha.
Gora Mahto, a relative of Dharmendra, said the deceased had consumed country liquor on Friday. He said Dharmendra complained of chest pain and restlessness late Friday night and was taken to a private nursing home where doctors declared him brought dead.
Baiju Paswan of Chhoti Pahadi said all of them had consumed country liquor on Friday. Most of the relatives of the deceased claimed that spurious liquor claimed their lives. They claimed that country liquor was easily available in their locality.
Nalanda DM Shashank Shubhankar confirmed five deaths, but said the reason would be known only after their postmortem report to be received from Biharsharif Sadar hospital.
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Nalanda SP Ashok Mishra confirmed 8 deaths from Chhoti Pahadi under mysterious circumstances. The SP told this newspaper that their family members claimed they had consumed liquor on Friday. Police were investigating it from this angle also. Mishra said he talked to the kin of the deceased at Prabhu Bigha and they denied spurious liquor as the reason behind the deaths.
The SP, who along with the DM, monitored door-to-door search operation to nab liquor smugglers, said over 50 pouches of countrymade and 87 bottles of IMFL were recovered from a house at Chhoti Pahadi. Some rappers, packaging material and equipments were also recovered from another place in the same locality. He said three persons were detained in this connection. They were being interrogated.
Meanwhile, deputy chief minister Tarkishore Prasad said the incident was unfortunate. He said the government is committed to ensuring complete prohibition in the state. He also said steps would be taken to ensure that such incidents were not repeated in future.